The Offical Blog of Alison Stein & Alison Wonderland Jewelry NYC

Hurricane in New York

I’m working on a last-minute assignment about Hurricane Katrina, which means that for the next 48 hours, I’m shifting gears from gurus and koro and family networks to thinking about disaster preparedness.

Here’s a fun fact: New York City is the third most-vulnerable city to a hurricane strike, behind Miami and New Orleans. If a Category 4 Hurricane struck the city, the storm surge could reach six miles into Brooklyn. A Category 2 storm puts JFK and LaGuardia underwater. Given that neurotic worrying is a favorite New York past time, I’m surprised that this brochure, with the natty title "Hazard Overview", hasn’t become a cult favorite.

Will you be in need of scuba gear if a storm hits the Big Apple? No need to guess, the city has a handy online utility –again exhibiting horrible naming skills, it’s called EMOLS— that lets you know what you might be in for. (You’ll want to look at this page to interpret your results.)

I learned that I live in an evacuation zone…and the city is most vulnerable to Hurricanes between August and October. So fair warning to all of our friends on higher, dryer ground: I hope you like house guests.